Field effect transistors (FETs) are widely used for computing, switching, amplification, filtering, and other tasks related to both analog and digital electrical signals. Most common among these are metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) field-effect transistors (MOSFETs), in which a gate structure is energized to create an electric field in an underlying channel region of a semiconductor body, by which electrons or holes are allowed to travel through the channel between a source region and a drain region of the semiconductor body. Complementary MOS (CMOS) devices have become widely used in the semiconductor industry, wherein both n-type and p-type (NMOS and PMOS) transistors are used to fabricate logic and other circuitry. Continuing trends in semiconductor device manufacturing include reduction in electrical device feature sizes as well as improvements in device performance in terms of device switching speed and power consumption. It is therefore desirable to have improvements in the fabrication of transistors to support these trends.